Mid-Morning Look

Monday, July 20, 2026

U.S. stocks start the new trading week with an upswing, looking to bounce back after last weeks losses that saw the S&P 500 fall -1.55%, the Nasdaq -2.9%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.93% as the PHLX chip index (SOX) was down 10% for the week, biggest weekly drop since April 2025. This morning, money rotating back into semis and data centers as the PHLX Semiconductor index (SOX) rises 3% back above 12,000 as memory names leading early SNDK, MU, SKHY as well as Ai plays AMD, AVGO, MRVL, NVDA (but have since pared gains). Data center names rising after tumbling recently with IREN and HUT up on lease deal news/revs. Note the global semiconductor sector (SOX) officially entered a bear market last week, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) cratering more than 20% from its all-time highs. Overall, a quiet start to the week for the economic calendar, with Japanese markets closed in observance of Marine Day and both the ECB and Federal Reserve in their pre-meeting blackout periods, but attention turns to a busy week of earnings.

In other news today ahead of a busy week of earnings (highlighted by TSLA, GOOGL earnings), Brent crude briefly hit a nearly six-week high before easing on Iran-U.S. negotiation comments. The latest headline being Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia effective immediately, their military spokesperson said in a televised speech. The militant group announced, “a maritime embargo against the criminal Saudi enemy, based on the equation of ‘an eye for an eye’ effective immediately upon the issuance of this statement.” Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Monday they had struck U.S. military assets across the Middle East after another night of U.S. bombardment of Iranian cities, part of a cycle of attacks that has all but wrecked an interim ceasefire agreement.

• Aerospace sector: AER is in discussions to buy BA 787 Dreamliner aircraft, with the leasing company considering as many as 15 of the 787 widebodies, Bloomberg reported. Senior FAA official Chris Rocheleau told Reuters that the agency expects to certify the Boeing MAX 7 and larger 10 soon, after an intensive review of the variants of the best-selling plane. RTX’s Pratt & Whitney scored a fat order to power 33 firm (plus 30 option) Airbus A320neo jets for British Airways. 12-year service deal included.
• Oil sector: energy stocks paced last week’s gains for the S&P 500 amid a 16% spike in WTI and brent crude, but shares of energy companies fall to start the week on reports Iran’s foreign ministry said negotiations with the United States could be pursued, based on national interests. MGY said it agreed to buy WildFire Energy for about $4.06 billion in a deal that would increase its production by roughly 53,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day; transaction would add more than 1.25 million net acres and upside development opportunities to the company’s portfolio. BP said it had agreed to sell its Austrian mobility, convenience and electric vehicle (EV) charging businesses to Volenergy AG under confidential terms; the agreement is expected to complete at the end of 2026.
• Restaurant sector: DPZ posted Q2 EPS $4.07 that misses consensus $4.17 while revs rose 4.3% y/y to $1.19B vs. est. $1.18B; Q2 U.S. same store sales grew 0.1% short of analysts’ estimates for a 0.62% rise, and international same store sales declined (-0.1%) compared with estimates of a rise of 0.5%; Q2 net income rises 3.6% y/y to $135.8M. Jersey Mike’s (JMKE) announces launch of IPO, currently expected to be between $21.00 and $25.00 per share. For YUM, the FDA said that lab experts re-checked lettuce sample results from Taylor Farms in an investigation into an outbreak of the cyclospora parasite and concluded the finding should be considered a false positive.

• AMD +3%; after announced an expanded strategic partnership spanning AMD GPUs, CPUs, networking and software on MSFT Azure. At the center of this expansion, Microsoft will deploy the AMD Helios Rackscale Solution, to power frontier model AI inference for Microsoft, its AI customers and support Azure AI services.
• DPZ +3%; after mixed results; posted Q2 EPS $4.07 that misses consensus $4.17 while revs rose 4.3% y/y to $1.19B vs. est. $1.18B; Q2 U.S. same store sales grew 0.1% short of analysts’ estimates for a 0.62% rise, and international same store sales declined (-0.1%) compared with estimates of a rise of 0.5%.
• GPN +3%; was upgraded to Overweight at Morgan Stanley saying they think the setup has become increasingly asymmetric to the upside as checks on both Genius and Worldpay are turning more constructive among their respective SMB and enterprise customers.
• HUT +13%; signed a 15-year, USD 9.8 billion triple-net lease for 352 MW of IT capacity at its Beacon Point AI data center campus; the deal doubles the existing high-investment-grade tenant’s contracted capacity at Beacon Point to 704 MW; campus base-term contract value rises to $19.6B; total contracted IT capacity across Hut 8’s AI data center portfolio increases to 949 MW; base-term contract value totals $26.6B.
• IREN +15%; announced that it has raised its year-end AI Cloud annualized run-rate revenue target from $3.7B to more than $4B, of which approximately 85% is now under contract following new multi-year cloud services contracts with leading AI developers representing $2.8bn in total contract value.
• LXP +3%; as BAM and CPP investments to acquire LXP in $5.2B all-cash transaction where LXP shareholders to receive $61.20 per share in cash; shares to be delisted from NYSE and company to become privately held upon completion and to suspend common share dividends until closing or termination of agreement

• NFLX -3%; adding to last week declines following softer Q3 guidance for eps and revs.
• ORCL -3%; as semiconductors rebound (SOX) after falling about -10% last week, the software sector (IGV) seeing weakness/rotation out of shares (MNDY, NOW, TEAM, SAP, WDAY).
• RYAAY -3%; as posted Q1 after-tax profit of EU538M, missing the EU579M analyst consensus, as the figure fell 34% year-over-year on a 6% decline in average fares and a doubling of unhedged jet fuel costs to $150 per barrel, with Q2 pricing trending modestly lower year-on-year.
• TEM -8%; as agreed to acquire PSNL for about $1.5 billion to bringing its cancer test to the AI-enabled precision medicine firm’s oncology portfolio.